Can You Come Here Where I Am?: The Poetry and Prose of Seven Breast Cancer Survivors

by Rita Busch and Judy T. Klevins

An unforgettable story of love, acceptance, and tradition. When Maude Chambliss first arrives at Retreat, the seasonal home of her husband's aristocratic family, she is a nineteen-year-old bride fresh... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1880664259
• ISBN13: 9781880664254
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Empr Inc.
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Ten Years Later and Still Here!

I am one of the seven authors who wrote for this book - published ten years ago! Portions have been reprinted, parts turned into lyrics for music (in an oratorio on breast cancer), pieces from it are still posted on oncolink.com, and the whole book has been used in medical schools... who would have thunk it? There are many such books now on the individual and collective emotional experience of women going through breast cancer treatment - but when we wrote there were none, zero, zilch. We really did write the book we wish we'd had when diagnosed. Four of us still survive. One died of cancer but not breast - ovarian. One is undergoing treatment 15 years later for another breast cancer. We all still hold our breath to one degree or another. Yet in 10 years, much has changed and there are now many more tools for women being diagnosed. If there is one thing we authors wanted you to know it is - don't despair! I hope this book still holds the humor, the fear, the irreverence, and the hope that writing it provoked in all of us. You're not crazy - and you are not alone. I am the least courageous person in the world, so if I can do it.... The book is out of print but a supply exists at the sponsoring institution - Virginia Hospital Center, Arlington, VA. God bless all the women with cancer and all the people who love them.

A courageous, honest look at the breast cancer experience

This writer's group of breast cancer survivors explores the darkness and the light of dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, the most common cancer in American women. The prose, poetry, and vignettes offered in this wonderful collection are presented with power and an honesty that sometimes takes your breath away. For example, one entry is on thoughts of suicide -- something even we breast cancer survivors rarely confess to each other. The writer talks starkly about being surprised to find herself planning (just in case) an act that she had always found dispicable, and speaking with tremndous candor and bravery about her thoughts and reasons for even looking at the issue. Some of the entries are also just plain funny, with the kind of irony that serious illness or disaster sometimes engenders. I'll always keep a vivid image of the account of one of the writer's brothers shopping for Astroglide for her when it was unavailable in her part of the country -- and he did this shopping in full clerical gear and collar! As a two-time breast cancer survivor (so far), I've used this book to focus my own thinking and to help offer peer-to-peer support to other women facing the challenges of the disease and the changes it brings to their lives. I've shared it with my husband to help him understand even more fully the range of effects and emotions caused by breast cancer. I've read whole chapters of it aloud as a member of a therapy group for women with advanced breast cancer. The book has helped us as we explore issues arising from dealing with a less-than-favorable long-term prognosis and the existential questions that arise from being in that situation. If you have or have had breast cancer and have ever wondered, "Does anyone else feel this way, or am I just crazy??" buy this and read it! Believe me, you are not alone! If you have not had the disease, but perhaps are a friend or relative of someone with breast cancer, and if you want to know the emotional experience of having breast cancer, this is the book for you. Can You Come Here Where I Am? is an invaluble resource and also a comfort in showing the common threads of experiencing the diagnosis, treatment and aftermath of breast cancer.

Personal, poignant reponses to diagnosis, treatment.

A wonderful, uplifting, funny and enchanting look at the lives of seven women struggling and living through the rigors of diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. As every woman's nightmare became reality for these women, they chose to pour out their disbelief, anger, frustration and their determination in intensely personal vignettes about life, loss, priorities and survival. I began this book expecting to be depressed, but found myself laughing as well as crying at vagaries of the medical profession, the common ways we all deceive ourselves, and the ultimate hopefulness of spirit. This is not another book about how to deal with diagnosis, nor is it the narrative of a miracle. It is the lyrical (and sometimes in-your-face) story of the ordinary and extraordinary events that punctuate all our lives. A wonderful book for anyone touched by breast cancer - survivor, family member or friend - and I suppose that includes all of us.